![]() “The first stage of curriculum development, is creating a curriculum of care” …Harold Brathwaite One of the main reasons I chose to switch careers was that I love the challenge of encouraging students to build their own characters. I believe that we can effectively encourage students to build character by teaching the importance of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes all the interactive strategies that guide students with their character building. Too often, we focus on the importance of I.Q. results and we are not spending enough time teaching strategies for moral & emotional intelligence. Why should we teach moral intelligence? The answer lies in creating safe school environments with teachers who demonstrate empathy, reliability through solid morals, values and attitudes for ALL students. Many youth are at risk through high divorce rates, abandonment, and relocating families due to employment. Today's schools are working hard to help students build a solid model of moral intelligence. The last school that I worked in promoted the "Seven Habits". I noted that the "Six Pillars" from Character Counts is also still popular. I remember my own children watching these six pillars being sung by Barney. What made these six pillars memorable was the way the characters were presented. I believe that these prompts for moral intelligence are critical for character development. It does not matter which model you teach, but how you teach them. To teach moral intelligence, teachers need to talk about moral intelligence first. Implementing a program that celebrates positive attitudes, growth and development is key for students to learn moral intelligence. So, what would be some strategies to teach moral intelligence? As a school culture, service learning projects offer students a real, rich and relevant way to practice their moral intelligence! Another idea is to have students host monthly showcases or assemblies as an excellent way to promote healthy moral intelligence. Personally, I find value in a "pay it forward" program, where the students can give unanimous and random acts of kindness to one another. I also find value in personal reflection of moral intelligence through art forms that show self-expression, patience and moral preservation. One of the most destructive forms of moral degrading is bullying. I have witnessed this in both school settings and on-line. School environments need to continue to make bullying and cyberbullying a priority issue and address this issue through education, teacher awareness training, plans of action and student consequences. I believe that moral intelligence can be taught to students by keeping it simple and consistent. After all, the discouraged student is really looking for someone who gives a dam! If you or someone you know is struggling with their emotional health, find solid advice from BetterHelp, an online platform with over 780,000 followers. Photo credit: http://www.craveonline.ca/mandatory/1067023-weird-news-latvian-man-says-a-beaver-took-him-hostage
0 Comments
“Fairness is everyone getting what they need in school”…Martha Kaufeldt
Inclusive education has come a long way, but we still have miles to go. There are many issues with the current thoughts around inclusive education. I believe that we don't completely know how to address students with ESL struggles, and special needs, simply because I believe that we stop when we identify these complex issues and we need to move to a deeper level of understanding and action. The way we often address inclusion echos the weakness the word "fairness". Frankly, it's a shallow term. To date, we can identify student learning styles, but we need to rethink that inclusive education is so much more than identification; it's the action of building positive environments that are conducive for learning. The key to building positive environments lies in the instructional practices to more effectively meet the diversity of today's learner. How do we build positive environments? As teachers, we need to get to know our students at a level of understanding that provides bridging towards identifying the supports needed for each student. How do we get to know our students on a deeper level? Student driven curriculum provides the platform of authentic learning, where students are no longer directly taught, but learn to share their new discoveries through cross-curricular projects. As long as we provide the framework of the learning through our student outcomes, I believe that project based learning trumps direct instructional teaching anyday. For example, in my IFX practicum experience, I facilitated a PBL in a grade 7 class. Guess what? Not only were the students completely engaged, but I had no behaviour issues in the classroom. Real, rich and relevant learning was exactly how I would describe the classroom. Sounds fairly inclusive also? PBL is inclusive because any classroom of ten or more students will have a variety of interests to provide balance to the challenges of PBL. I know that the magic number is ten because I ran Company Program for Junior Achievement of Southern Alberta for four years. It was remarkable how you would always have enough students interested in the various positions to run a company effectively. PBL models offer the pedagogical platform for everyone to receive what they need out of their learning. Take my advice and delete the word "fairness" from your vocabulary. So, Martha Kaufeldt, "fairness" is catering to the average. We need better than average. We can not be afraid to go the extra mile with our students. PBL gets messy, complicated and challenging. So does life. Only then, learning becomes so much more than fair. It becomes inclusive. "A good teacher makes himself progressively unnecessary" ~ Thomas Carruthers
I have to say that this quote is by far my favorite to date. Why? I believe that a good teacher should be progressively unnecessary for all students because the skill of teaching good habits in education is like teaching healthy eating habits. I know that this may sound funny, but I spent a few years in the grocery business and I have witnessed some funny ideas about how to be successful with diets and nutrition. I see some similar ideas about how to be successful with education. If we positively feed the brain, we will foster positive results. Feeding the brain not only includes healthy eating, but it also includes healthy education habits that builds skills. Strong education skills include discipline in reading, writing, critical thinking, communication, cooperation, collaboration, dependability, ability, confidence, independence, growth of network, and opportunities. These skills are developed by a consistent and a dedicated work ethic. Students who master these skills are no longer 'teacher dependent'. Strong education skills also require a positive attitude. I have tutored many math students at the college, and I often see that a negative attitude is all that is holding them back from their own success. Note to self: Next time I am having a hard time 'wrapping my head around a tough assignment', check the ingredient list... maybe I am missing my 'daily intake' of 'learning ingredients'... |